1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for remotely authenticating a command. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for remotely authenticating a command to be executed on a target computer system.
2. Related Art
As the number of computer systems used by an organization increases, it becomes progressively harder to perform system maintenance operations for these computer systems. One of the tasks involved in maintaining a computer system is to issue commands from a remote system to be executed by the computer system. For example, these commands can include commands to install new software, commands to install software patches, commands to upgrade firmware, commands to install trust anchors (e.g., public keys for trusted systems), and commands to request configuration information.
To issue a command to a computer system, a system administrator typically uses a computer system belonging to the administrator to send a command to one or more target computer systems. During this process, it is desirable to require minimal interaction with a system administrator and minimal preconfiguration of the target computer systems. However, at the same time there is a need to prevent unauthorized users from issuing unauthorized commands.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus for remotely authenticating a command without the problems described above.